Oxnard: Getting there from here

kw oxnard

Tuesday

Jan 27, 2009 at 11:30 PM

It's time for Savannah to get real about public transportation.

One of the most striking images of President Obama's inauguration was the orderly river of crowds onto the national mall. This stemmed in part from No-Drama Obama himself, who inspires calm and camaraderie among his supporters. But it also resulted from something far more prosaic: a beautifully-designed, well-run mass transit system.

I lived in Washington in high school, and I took the Metro everywhere: To my year-long internship with a moderate Republican congressman (here's hoping that breed returns to the city); to the farmer's market on Capitol Hill, the Smithsonian and suburban shopping malls; to see friends; even to catch a plane from National Airport.

At no time did I feel unsafe, uncomfortable or confused, because the Metro is continually policed, upgraded and cleaned so that it sparkles, and because every car sports easy-to-read maps of the entire system.

Savannah is not (yet) a large city. And our struggling economy makes large capital improvements tricky for even the most progressive politicians. But if we do not think long and hard about public transportation in the near future, I fear the growth to come once the economy recovers will swallow us up in an Atlanta-esque quagmire of traffic, smog, bad water quality and sprawl.

Last summer, the urban theorist Charles Landry challenged us to dream big for our city. So here's a new year's dream of a comprehensive transit system for Savannah - and perhaps a way to pay for it.

Imagine you're a family of four living in Pooler and decide to spend a spring Saturday biking around the Historic District. No need to pile your bikes in the SUV. Just pedal down to the nearest above-ground light-rail station, walk your bikes into the specially-equipped electric rail car, then enjoy a 10-minute ride to the westside terminus on, say MLK, Jr. Boulevard and Gwinnett Street.

Everywhere dedicated bike lanes ensure safe cycling, and bike racks with built-in locks make stopping for a meal or a stroll through a museum worry-free. When you tire of cycling, hop on one of the electric streetcar lines running north-south on Barnard and Price streets, or east-west on Gaston and Bay streets.

Automobiles are few. It's more pleasant to park on the edge of the district and take streetcars or biofuel-powered jitneys to one's destination, than to sit in traffic and navigate the squares.

Or say you're a couple from Ohio, in town to experience one of our famous festivals, and you fancy a trip to the beach. Take a leisurely stroll through the squares to the eastside light-rail terminus near East Broad and President streets, and hop a speedy train to Tybee Island. An express gets you there in 10 minutes; local trains that stop on all the islands take a bit longer, maybe 20 minutes - the same as an automobile.

A third light-rail station in the midtown area, say, Victory Drive and Bee Road, allows travelers from the southside, Georgetown and Richmond Hill to connect with streetcars, jitneys or bike lanes as well. Yet another light-rail line forms a ring around the city, so people in Thunderbolt, for example, can get to Effingham County on one train.

Ironically, with fewer cars on the road, more actual people can move around the city, spending much-needed dollars in restaurants, shops and galleries. The carless poor can now to get to work, even when a job is on the other side of town. Less-abled grandparents visit their grandchildren more often. Drunk-driving accidents that plague our area during holidays and late-night revels decrease dramatically.

President Obama has pledged a huge infrastructure stimulus package in the coming months, and I've heard talk about using Georgia's portion to repave roads and highways. But if Savannah aims to reach our goal of becoming America's greenest city, why not use that money instead to make the roads - and the cars that clog them - irrelevant?

K. W. Oxnard lives and writes in Savannah

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